Psalm 137
April 13th, 2009 by 
bkmarcus
The Twitter: *
Psalm 137 is beautiful and disturbing. The most-often-quoted opening lines. The least-often-quoted last lines.
The Psalm:
- By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
- We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
- For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
- How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?
- If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
- If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
- Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
- O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
- Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
The music video with, well, abridged lyrics:
* The “tweet”?
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1 Comment »
iceberg said,
I don’t know who is responsible for this English translation, but there are some minor differences between it and the original Hebrew, which could be due to the translators interpretation.
For example, in the Hebrew verse 5, it simply states- ‘If I forget Jerusalem, I will forget my right hand’.
I take this to be an obvious exaggeration stated for effect, which is to say that I will never allow myself to forget Jerusalem anymore than I can forget my right hand. I don’t see anything about cunning in there.
Also, the word “khiki” in verse 6 would translate to “cheek”, not roof of the mouth. This is true of modern Hebrew, but it could be otherwise in Biblical Hebrew.
I’m actually quite familiar with this Psalm because verses 5 & 6 are said at the conclusion of every Jewish wedding ceremony under the chupah, which is immediately followed by the stomping of a glass cup by the bridegroom.
This whole symbolic gesture is to remind us, that even in our most joyous moments, we still do not forget our nations’ loss of the temple. The breaking of the glass cup was once a more meaningful symbol back when glass cups weren’t as trivial to purposely destroy.
The last two verses are a bit of a mystery which I have not researched yet; Robert Heinlein wrote a novel on the sadisticness of G-d which he bases on his intrepretation of these 2 verses. That book is “Job: A Comedy of Justice”.